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10 Personal Challenges to Make the Most of 2020

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Want to carve out time and space for thinking and reflection in 2020? Join me once a month online for 90 minutes for reflection, inspiration and connection. Our next gathering is on the 28 January and you can use the coupon bemyguest to try it for free for the first time. Or better yet, commit to growing your reflection muscle by registering for all the 2020 Alyceum Live gatherings here.

 

So it’s at this time of the year, we are pondering how to make the most of the year ahead. What habits can stay and which ones need to go! As James Clear says in his book, Atomic Habits, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”

The fascinating realisation is you choose who you want to be. Every action you take is a step forward in a direction. Which path do you want to take? In today’s blog post we are exploring small actions, habits and mindsets to make the most of 2020! Here’s my top ten personal challenges!

1. GOALS – Make a bucket list of 100 goals you’d like to achieve in your lifetime

So first – let’s get clear on what we want to do with our lives. Can you list 100 goals that you’d like to achieve in your lifetime? This is often called a bucket list. Think about life as experiences – what experiences would you like to have?

Salsa dancing? African adventure? Learn french? Be part of a book club?

How often do you step back and think about this? We are creatures of comfort, and our operating mode would rather just do things similar to last time then explore something new. So we have to continually push ourselves to explore new things!

If you struggle with creating your 100 – think about certain themes in your life, for example, what’s 10 travel goals, what’s 10 hobbies you would like to try, what’s 10 goals you could do with friends, what’s 10 things you like to learn more about?

2. ATTENTION – Reclaim your attention

In the world we live in – this is a HUGE one. Make 2020 the year you reclaim your attention.

Social media, app notifications, emails – these modern day conveniences erode your attention and willpower. How much time do you spend on your phone? How many times are you distracted with a notification? What do you do when you first wake up in the morning or straight before you go to bed at night?

Some of the biggest technology companies in the world are becoming world experts in developing addictions! This is not good for us for many reasons, it trains our brains to look for distract instead of concentrating, and we avoid every moment to be bored.

Why is that such a bad thing, you ask?

Bored can actually be useful. In Manoosh Zomorodi’s book, Bored and Brilliant, she explores the benefits of bored, saying that it can be an incubator lab for brilliance!

In the book, she explores 7 challenges, here are a couple of you.

First challenge is just to observe yourself. Count how many times you reach for your phone, head to instagram or get distracted by a notification. Often your phones can now record this information too. The results might be surprising.

Another challenge is to keep your devices while in motion. If you’re walking, in the car, or meeting with someone, keep your phone out of reach.

Better yet, another challenge is to delete the app that you’re most addicted to off your phone!

The point is, you set intentions and boundaries about how you want to live your life. How you spend your days, are how you spend your life. Just 25 minutes a day can equal to 2 years of your life!

Think of the time you could regain in your life and put it towards achieving one of your 100 goals instead!

3. RESILIENCE – Take a cold shower

Hate the cold? That’s the whole point! If you want to build your sense of resilience, you need to do the things you hate. You can start with the act of taking a cold shower.

Cold exposure has been shown to have numerous health benefits such as improving your immune system, decreasing depression or help with weight loss – which is really great, but not the reason why we are doing it.

The simple act of having a cold shower helps develop our ability to deal with discomfort. The more we practice dealing with discomfort, the more everyday annoyances won’t bother us anymore. We practice with cold showers so we can build our courage for the important moments in life that are uncomfortable.

4. COURAGE – Be Bold and push your comfort zones every day

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

So the cold showers are building our courage – now it’s time to push out of those comfort zones and be bold.

Make a list of the boldest moves you could make this year. Think about the things that really scare you. Reaching out to that person who you admire, attending a conference, speaking in front of an audience, taking on a physical challenge, trying a new hobby.

Dr Stan Beechman, author of Elite Teams writes that fear is keeping you from reaching your potential. Conquering fear should be your primary goal in life.

What fears do you have?

What courageous acts will move you forward? Saying yes. Saying no. Making that phone call. Speaking up at that meeting. Taking that new class. Setting that goal.

Make that bravery list and pick them off each month! Fortune favours the bold!

5. RELATIONSHIPS – Find people who inspire you

Crowd your life with people who inspire you.

You can start easily with books and podcasts. Then find meet ups, events or communities. Invest time in developing the relationships in your life.

Friendships take time and effort. In the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Jeffrey Hall, professor of Communication Studies, suggested that it’s all about time we invest. His results showed that it takes 40 to 60 hours to form a casual friendship, 80 to 100 hours to be upgraded to being a friend, and about 200 hours to become “good friends”

Let’s start clocking up the time who bring out the best in us!

6. GIVING – Find ways to give back

There are so many ways we can play our part in creating a better world – we can give our money, time, expertise or resources. Stand up for something. Recognise the challenges in our world and do something about it. Get informed. Get together with others and get doing something different because of it.

Our world needs change makers. You can be that change maker.

What’s a cause that is truly meaningful to you? Perhaps it get that fire in your belly – gets you angry or annoyed. Dedicate some time in 2020 supporting this cause, either through your time, money, expertise or resources.

Perhaps 2020 is the year, you find your first community board position?

7. SELF AWARENESS – Create a list of journalling questions

Michael Gelb in his book, Think like Da Vinci explores the habits and rituals of the great Leonardo Da Vinci. In his one short life time, Leonardo Da Vinci was a creative, a scientist, a town planner and an inventor to name a few. Da Vinci journaled about everything – his ideas, his learning, his findings and more.

A list of 100 questions is like your curiosity list. Start by writing down a question that you can ponder in your journal.

  • Am I in the right job or career?
  • How can I use my strengths more everyday?
  • What does love look like to me?
  • How can I be fearless?

Just keep brainstorming questions until you get to 100 – try to do this in one sitting! Then review your list and group them into patterns or similarities. Once you’ve done that, see if you can choose 10 power questions to keep handy when you are journalling.

You can never again have the excuse….but I don’t know what to journal about!

8. STRENGTHS – Spend time honing your superpowers

Do you truly understand, foster and utilise your strengths?

Your innate talents combined with your knowledge and skills, creates your strengths. These are your superpowers.

Focus on building mastery in your areas of strength. Are you a technical expert, a connector, an entrepreneur, a pace setter? Whatever you are, double down on your areas of strength.

“We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.”
~ George Leonard from Mastery

In what ways, can you keep on the path of mastery in 2020?

9. FOCUS – Break up with complaining

Why not make 2020 the year that you stop complaining!

Do you enjoy a good complain? I think everyone does. But how much do you do it everyday? It can be quite surprising how easily we can fall into complaining all the time!

Time to break the habit.

Will Bowen, author of A Complaint Free World came up with a simple challenge….

“Begin to wear the bracelet on either wrist. When you catch yourself complaining, gossiping, or criticizing, move the bracelet to the other wrist.

If you hear someone else who is wearing a purple bracelet complain, it’s okay to point out their need to switch the bracelet to the other arm; BUT if you’re going to do this, you must move your bracelet first! Because you’re complaining about their complaining.

Stay with it. It may take many months to reach 21 consecutive days. The average is 4 to 8 months.”
What a challenge!

Why should we kick the complaining habit? There are many reasons:

  • Complaining induces our stress response which is not good for our brains.
  • Complaining makes it hard to see the possibilities and open our minds.
  • Pessimists report worse physical and mental health than optimists.

This is a great challenge to first be aware of how much you complain and then complete the challenge to erase it from your conversation.

10. VISION – Don’t just thinking about 2020, let’s think about the whole decade ahead!

Instead of thinking about where you want to be and do in 2020, why not think about where you want to be in 2030? What age will you be? What will you be doing?

Commit to the long term. We are a very short term-focused society, we like things instantly. Have you noticed?

Peter Diamandis, author of Bold, bucks the trend here with his challenge – what’s your 25-year commitment? He says, imagine publicly making a 25 year commitment to something you’re passionate about?

There is great power in this type of long term thinking to make a greater impact in our lives and in society. So what’s your 25 year commitment?

Well that’s it – my top 10 challenges to help you improve your 2020 and beyond. What do you think?

If you want to improve your ability to reflect and engage with a good dose of monthly inspiration and connection, then I invite you to join my Alyceum Live online gatherings. Join us here for a free taster (FIRST TIME GUESTS ONLY) on the 28 January using the coupon bemyguest. Or better yet, commit to growing your reflection muscle by registering for all the 2020 Alyceum Live gatherings here.

10 questions to plan for 2020

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Want to join my Reflection Revolution in 2020? You, me, the Alyceum Community, once a month for 90 minutes for reflection, inspiration and connection. Join us here for a free taster (FIRST TIME GUESTS ONLY) on the 28 January using the coupon bemyguest. Or better yet, commit to growing your reflection muscle by registering for all the 2020 Alyceum Live gatherings here.

A fresh new year to dream, visualise and plan. But how do you get started? Journalling is a great tool to develop our insight, connect with our inner voice and start to develop clarity about the life you want to lead.

I think we can under-estimate what can be achieved in a year but we have to take the time to contemplate what we will actually want to achieve and break it down into your first bite sized piece of this. So what do you want to be different in a year’s time?

In December I posted 10 Questions to Fuel Your Reflection of 2019. Because we have to look back first!

It’s a great practice to….

  • reflect back over the whole year (it gives you a sense of what can be achieved in a year),
  • visualise what you did with your time (consider the projects you worked on and how you spent your time), and
  • really consider on the key learnings you have taken from the year – seriously, what did you learn?

Most often, we sleep walk through life without taking the time to reflect, grow and stretch into the future. Just as useful as it is to look back, now it’s time to look forward.

10 Questions to help your planning in 2020

So where to start!

Take these 10 journaling questions to planning for 2020. They are simple questions but they will take some time to consider. Put yourself first – before work, Netflix or social media, and make it a priority to immerse yourself in these questions.

1. How will you step into the highest version of yourself this year?

If you practiced all the habits you wanted, lived your core strengths and you were totally aligned with values – this would be your highest version of you. Visualise who and what this person would look like, what choices they would make, how they would talk and interact with others and what they would focus on in life. The game is – how do you edge closer and closer to this person every moment. Think small steps.

Your highest version of you can be your greatest mentor, guide and inspiration – ask her for advice as life’s challenges arise. Tap into the inner wisdom you possess. The clearer your highest version is to you, the better she can guide you through life’s ups and downs.

2. Describe your ideal day, week and year?

How you live your days is how you live your life!

It’s a big statement but it’s true. Our daily habits form the foundations for how you live your life. What is one habit you want to focus on this year and one habit you want to let go of?

Take some time to craft your ideal day, week and year. What does an ideal 24 hours look like to you? Take into consideration all the realities of life and craft what it could look like.

What about a week? What do the ultimate 7 days look like? Break the rules, and see what you come up with. What energises you? Who do you want to spend time with? What goals do you want to dedicate your life to?

3. How will you use your strengths?

Want to enjoy life to the fullest? Put your strengths to work!

Professor Martin Seligman, Director of the University of Penn Positive Psychology Centre found that a key part of flourishing in life and work is using your strengths.  So first you have to know them – do you know them? Inside out and back to front? How much of your day do you get to use your strengths currently?

How can you increase the dial on this and use them more and more in your life. Again, you can be creative with this, perhaps you haven’t come across ways that you could be using them more and more in your life.

4. How will you take care of yourself? What’s your health and wellbeing plan?

Without your health it’s very hard to achieve anything of significance over the long term. Think physical, mental and spiritual. This means you have to actively plan for sleep, rest, nutrition, movement, mental clarity and fun! How could you step up your health? How can you make it fun?

I read an article this year that so aptly described self care as not a day in the day spa but the everyday looking after yourself – cooking healthy meals, moving your body and doing something that enriches your spirit – this is real self care.

Don’t wait until your health is threatened to make health a priority. Do it now.

5. What is holding you back? 

Otto Scharmer, author of the books Theory U and Leading from the Emerging Future talks about the three voices that hold you back…

  • the voice of judgement (shutting down your open mind instead of being inquiring and curious),
  • the voice of cynicism (shutting down your open heart instead of connecting and relating) and
  • the voice of fear (shutting down your open will instead of letting go).

How powerful!

Do you ever listen to the stories you tell yourself or others about what’s happening in your life? I often try to listen in to what I say automatically to friends and colleagues about what’s happening in my life.

Journalling is another great opportunity to tap into your stories.

These stories are your beliefs – but you know what, you don’t have to believe them? What? Yes, your beliefs can hold you back and sometimes you need to actively change them.

What beliefs do you need to say goodbye to and what beliefs will you try out in 2020?

6. How will you give back to the community? And how can you be of service to others? 

If you know me at all, you know I see this as an integral piece in life. Life is energised by using our greatest strengths in service to the world. If you haven’t felt this through your giving before, you probably haven’t tapped into the right giving for you yet.

How can you focus on giving to others this year? Often this can provide great energy in our lives. If you were to focus on one area to give back in, what’s it going to be this year? Commit as deeply to this as the other areas in your life.

Maybe it could be to join a Not-For-Profit board?

7. What do you want to learn?

The most extraordinary leaders I know are people who never stop learning. They are humble and understand the world is changing at an extraordinary pace.

First define the what. Where do you want to grow, stretch and learn this year? If you could develop your own learning curriculum this year, what would it be?

Then think about the how. How will you learn what you want to learn? What books can you read? Are there any courses you can take? What conferences can you learn from? Which key skills do you want to learn and foster this year?

Get excited about what you can learn and how you can grow as a person and leader.

8. What relationships do you want to foster?

Relationships feed you – they can lift you up, inspire you, challenge you and support you. Yet, we are increasingly living in a lonely world. In today’s world, we’ve forgotten how to foster friendships with others.

Lately I’ve become really intentional about the relationships I’ve wanted to foster. Which ones energise me? Provide great insights? Challenge me? Nurture me?

Think about who makes up your community? Family, friends, networks, work colleagues and neighbours.

Be focused on the key relationships you would like to develop this year. Who can help you be the person you want to be? Will you reach out to a new mentor, create a mastermind group, attend a new conference to expand your networks. Foster your friendships?

This will take time. Devote time, energy, ideas and resources to develop these friendships. Make them fun. Make them meaningful. And they will create a life worth living.

9. How will you be inspired?

Inspire – the original latin definition means to breathe into. How do you breathe life into your existence?

What are the inspiration sources that help you stay energised and refreshed for the ups and downs for the year. How can you operationalise your inspiration sources so you can perform at an optimal level?

Inspiration is required on a consistent basis so think about the sources that energise you in life. What gives you energy and what drains your energy?

10. What amazing life adventures do you want to do this year?

Ok – now it’s time for a bit of fun.

Forget work, think about what is going to bring you joy and fun into your life. What life adventures could you have this year?

Think about what you’ve never done before! What’s something you could do for the very first time? It could be a new place to visit, a new hobby, a new friendship to cultivate?

Think about your fears – what are you avoiding? What gets the heart rate going? Life adventures can be a mental challenge as well as a physical one. What is one fear to conquer this year? What training and preparation could you do? Who could you enlist to help you? Give yourself a challenge.

Think about what brings you joy!

Let’s continue the conversation here. I’d love to know what 2020 will bring you!

Ready to step into your full leadership potential?

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10 key questions to fuel your reflection in 2019

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It’s so easy to get caught up in the consumerism of Christmas with the social pressures of presents, parties and more but I have a challenge for you to change and reframe what the last month of the year is about! Instead of December passing you by in a blur, let’s make it a time of review and reflection, meaning-making and connection! Isn’t that what the festive season is really supposed to be about?

 

* Want to join my Reflection Revolution in 2020? You, me, the Alyceum Community, once a month for 90 minutes for reflection, inspiration and connection. Join us here for a free taster on the 18 December using the coupon bemyguest. Or better yet, commit to growing your reflection muscle by registering for all the 2020 Alyceum Live gatherings here.*


Connection and Reflection


Rather than making December a month of overindulgence of food and drink, why not gather an intimate group of your family, friends and colleagues together to make time for personal reflection and then share your reflections with each other. You could couple this with an early morning walk along the beach, an evening yoga session or a fun game of tennis! I’ve made it simple for you and created a list of questions you can send to your friends below. Or better yet, make up your own list of questions to explore!

Reflection can be a powerful learning tool to ignite your self awareness, relationships and leadership. Better yet, it’s absolutely free to do and your reflections get better with practice.


A Magic Carpet Ride


Think of it as a magic carpet ride through the events, activities and experiences that occurred in 2019. Fly through your year from January to now, think about the moments of pure joy as well as the challenges that have made you stronger. I find it can be worthwhile to flick through your diary and note the events, milestones, projects or family moments that made an impact this year.

Step back and reflect – what did these moments mean for you? What have you learnt? By standing back and looking at it from a distance, you can elicit the learning and the meaning. There has been multiple research studies that have shown the benefits of regular reflection. It helps our performance and also makes us happier. Think of it as the debrief after the game, consider each move made, think about how strategies panned out, reflect on winning moves and ones to improve on next time.

As Margaret Wheatley said “We are, always, poets, exploring possibilities of meaning in a world which is also all the time exploring possibilities.”

 

Let me prompt you…

 

I get it… reflection can be hard if it’s a muscle you haven’t used in awhile. So let me take some of the pain away but giving you some prompts to help with your thinking. Here are 10 questions to get you thinking about the year that’s been!

1. What has made you proud this year?


Tap into the experiences and achievements that made you feel happy, satisfied and alive!

Sometimes our reflections can be dogged by what went wrong and how do you improve. Instead, I want you to focus on the activities that made you the proudest this year!

What activities can you credit to your hard work, initiative or creativity? Sink into these feelings – perhaps it was something you achieved or something someone close to you achieved. Perhaps it was something you overcame this year or a lesson you learned. It could be anything – relationships, goals, hard work or your attitude

2. What inspired you this year?


inspiration: the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.

Re-energising is so important. Pinpoint what it was for you.

What were your sources of inspiration this year? People, environments, conferences or videos (like TED videos), movies, events, books – anything! See if you can pin point it – what or who inspired you to be your best?

What were the catalysts to enhance your knowledge, confidence, skills or work? Was it a new podcast, a key event or an important mentor? Share this list with others to combine your inspiration avenues!

3. What are your three key learnings from this year?


What’s been your major learning curves this year?

Instead of sailing into the new year without fully gaining the benefit of all your experiences this year, consider the three main things that you’ve learnt. What did you set out to learn and improve on during the year? Where can you see you improved from last year?

Where have you grown the most as a person, leader, family member or friend? Were these intended learning curves or a by product of circumstance? Either way, we can take each experience to the next level by reflecting on what we learnt.

4. What habits have served you well?


Aristotle said we are what we repeatedly do. It’s quite enlightening to realise that what you do day in, day out makes you the person you are! Maybe it’s a little scary too!

It’s so simple, but it can also mean the discipline of constructing your day to be the person you want to be. What habits did you intentionally practice this year and which ones have slipped in – good or bad? Which habits have you added this year? Which ones did you drop? How did it make a difference to your year?

5. What were your key relationships this year and how have they affected you?


Family and friends, business colleagues and community – relationships can play a key part of your happiness and also your success.

Which relationships made you feel strong and empowered? How did you intentionally foster the relationships in your life? Are you hanging around the right people? Are they lifting you up to be your best? How has your presence positively impacted on the people around you too?

6. How did you utilise your strengths this year?


Your strengths are your superpowers. How do you use them in service to the world? Do you know what your key strengths are? If not, perhaps it’s time to get clear about the strengths that you are or can contribute to the world.

How did you put your strengths to work this year? Are you using your strengths on a daily, weekly and monthly basis? How does it make you feel when you can work in your zone of genius, as Gay Hendricks would call it.

7. How did you focus on what’s fundamentally important to you this year?


It is so easy to get caught up in what everyone else wants you to do. Your email can end of being a huge list of other people’s to do actions! Your family, friends, work or even society in general can dictate what gets done.

Think about when you get into work everyday, do you reflect on your key priorities and set in for some deep, deliberative work or do you check your email and focus on what others want of you? Did you get to focus on what was important to you this year or did you get pulled in different directions?

What is fundamentally important to you and how do you ensure it stays the priority for you?

8. What are you grateful for this year?


Time to evoke a little gratitude. Make a list and check it twice!

Gratitude has immeasurable benefits to your physical health, mental health, improves your relationships, increases your resilience, helps you sleep better, improves your self esteem, not to mention, it makes you happier!

From the huge big things to the tiniest little things. What are you grateful for? If it involved people around you, this might be a nice way to reconnect with people during December and tell them what made you grateful too!

9. What have been the obstacles, hard times or challenges you’ve experienced and how have you grown from the experiences?


Yes there are going to be ups and downs in the year. Times where it didn’t always go to plan. Experiences you didn’t expect. What were your biggest challenges this year?

Revisit these tough times and bring some reframing to it – how has it made you a better person, how did you grow and what did you learn? If it’s still tough to revisit, perhaps it’s time for gather a new meaning about the experience.

10. How would I summarise the year that I’ve had?


Use your creative juices to summarise the year in a creative way.

It’s quite in vogue these days to come up with a word at the start of the year, but I want you to do this retrospectively. How would you summarise it?

What would be the theme, mantra or symbol that characterises the year that you had? How would you draw a picture to reflect on the past year? Time to get out of your head and instead into your heart and body. What colours would you use? What shapes or images represent this year?

Take some time this December…


Grab your favourite drink, put on some encouraging music and sit in your favourite chair or go outside into nature and answer these questions for yourself!? Then come together with friends and share your reflections from the year.

Look out the blog in the coming weeks for 10 Questions to Plan for the New Year.

 

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As our Christmas gift to you, you can register for FREE using the coupon code bemyguest by clicking on the image below.

10 Key Questions to Fuel your reflection in 2019

25 questions to improve your emotional intelligence

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There is a lot of talk about the governance experience required by board directors to fulfil their duties on a board(which is a good thing!). What is talked about less so though but is becoming more and more important is the ability for board directors to bring emotional intelligence into the boardroom.

Exceptional board directors lead with humility, respect, have the awareness of the impact they have on those around them and know when to speak and when to listen.

Need a reminder about what EQ is all about?  Emotional intelligence is described by Perter Salovey and John D. Mayer as:

The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate amongst them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.

Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ, he classifies emotional intelligence into five domains:

Self Awareness: Knowledge of your states, preferences, resources and intuitions.
Self Regulation: Management of your states, impulses and resources.
Motivation: Emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching goals.
Empathy: Awareness of others’ feelings, needs and concerns.
Social Skills: Adeptness at inducing desirable responses in others.

Here are some reflective questions to ask yourself to develop your emotional intelligence as a board director or team member.

Self Awareness

1.  Honestly do you know the strengths and weaknesses you bring to the boardroom?
2.  How do you define yourself? Are these self perceptions accurate? How do you test these?
3.  Do you listen and seek opportunity to understand how others perceive your strengths and weaknesses?
4.  What are your personal values and are they aligned with the organisation you serve?
5. Do you rate yourself as a continual learner? Would others have the same view?
6. Do you act with humility rather than arrogance?

Self Regulation

7.  Are you respectful in your language and actions to your fellow board directors, staff and stakeholders?
8.  Are you able to keep calm during conversations?
9.  Do you listen openly to other’s points of view?
10.  Do you notice when you’re frustrated during conversations?

Motivation

11.  Do you truly understand what motivates you to serve on a NFP board or in your work team?
12. Do you serve the long term interests of the organisation rather than your own concerns or short term objectives?
13. Do you act from a place of authenticity?
14. Are you self motivated to serve on a board or at work?
15. Do you set and aim to reach goals personally and as a collective on the board?

Empathy

16. Do you put yourself in the shoes of the people you serve?
17.  Do you understand the values, strengths and goals of your fellow board directors or team mates?
18.  Do you share the workload equally on the board?
19.  Are you willing to see how others perceive situations and decisions to be made?
20. Do you work hard to be trustworthy?

Social Skills

21. Do you commit to working respectfully with your fellow board directors?
22. Do you reach other to develop a strong relationship with your fellow board directors?
23.  Do you make time to have conversations outside of the boardroom to deepen your relationship with your fellow board members?
24. Are we committed to working as equals in the boardroom?
25. Do you act with a positive attitude?

Emotional intelligence is a critical component of an effective board. Are you actively cultivating the skills of emotional intelligence?

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Emotional Intelligence: How to perform at your best

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Are you willing to challenge yourself to develop as a leader?

Most people are committed to developing their technical expertise to maximise potential (think about the years spent at university!) But do you put the same level of commitment into developing your skills to connect, communicate and empower other people as well?

Emotional intelligence is critical to exceptional leadership. It leads to better work performance, better leadership and more happiness in life. Who doesn’t want that?

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence has become a buzzword ever since Daniel Goleman wrote the book called Emotional Intelligence! But many people can have trouble actually describing what it is.

At its core, emotional intelligence is about monitoring and understanding your own and other’s feelings and emotions and using this knowledge to guide your thinking and actions.

A recent Australian report on leadership found that current leaders rated themselves as performing highest on their work ethic and track record of success. Only trouble is – what people really wanted from their leaders was team building and outstanding interpersonal and communication skills. And these were some of the skills that they performed most poorly at.

Eek!

Emotional intelligence is key to building strong teams and communicating with others. Here are five practical behaviours that emotionally intelligent leaders practice.

Ready to step into your full leadership potential?

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15 WAYS TO FIND AN NFP BOARD POSITION
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5 EQ Behaviours

1. Building Self Awareness

I find leaders either really overrate their abilities or really underrate them. I know, that’s quite a spectrum.  On one side, people often don’t see the immense value they can offer. Yet on the other hand, others can self assess themselves as highly competent without any basis. One strategy to overcoming this phenomenon is seeking high quality feedback from others on your behaviour and performance. Blind spots are hard to overcome without the help of others.

2. Compassion and Respect

How you treat others is important. Do you listen to others? Or encourage equal participation rather than dominate discussions? Do you treat people as legitimate human beings with feelings? Do you care about your team?   

Dehumanising others in the workplace is an increasingly challenging issue. The more we move into positions of power and feel experienced at what we do, the more we can become more concerned about our own needs and less concerned about the needs of others. Everyone deserves to be treated with compassion and respect. This is the essence of a good human being. Don’t underestimate it!

3.  Motivation and Self Management

Do you notice the feelings you are feeling? Awareness is the first step to managing them appropriately. But it’s amazing how many people can go from meeting to meeting in a bad mood without being aware of it or acknowledging it. Get good at identifying your feelings, honestly connecting the underlying cause of your feeling and taking action to correct it, if need be.

4. Vulnerability

Exceptional leaders acknowledge that they don’t know it all. This vulnerability allows them to connect at a deeper level with their team. Displaying an attitude of curiosity about team members’ points of view shows that everyone has something to contribute and everyone has something to learn from others.

5.  Maintaining Equanimity

Life is not going to go right 100% of the time. Failures happen, people get sick, projects go askew and as leaders – we need to keep our composure. A mindfulness meditation practice can support us to lead with equanimity. It helps us practice lengthening the time between what happens to us and how we react to it.

What’s important?

All in all, our emotional intelligence makes us better human beings. If you want to be the best leader you can be, let’s start with who you are and how you treat others.

Now over to you: how do you practice emotional intelligence as a leader? Do you have any experiences with leaders that particularly impressed you with their emotional intelligence? I’d love to hear!

How to follow your purpose when things get tough

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Living according to your purpose, strengths, and values will dramatically improve your life for the better. But it will not be easy. A study from the University of Pennsylvania found that pursuing one’s purpose can trigger anxiety. I know this in my own life to be true – and of many change-makers too. It can be exhausting to follow a greater purpose. You wonder whether you’re making a difference, whether it’s worth it, and whether there is an easier way.

Following your purpose is a process, not a destination

Following one’s purpose makes many people feel like they are not good enough. That where they are in life isn’t good enough. And they feel they may never be good enough to live their purpose. If that is you, you need to understand that following your purpose is a process, not a goal. It is the sense of direction that guides what types of activities and accomplishments you pursue. And your success at those things does not define it!

Purpose requires sacrifice

Another big reason why people do not pursue their purpose, strengths, and values is that it requires sacrifices. In some ways, society makes it easier to just eat junk food, lie on the couch after work, and binge watch the latest tv show. Or to think that the latest gadget or expensive bag will bring you happiness.

Purpose takes sacrifice. To live the life of a revolutionary, you have to make decisions outside the norm. You have to take actions outside the norm and surround yourself with those moving on a similar path.

How to hang in there when following a purpose-driven life gets tough

1. Know the stress coping mechanisms that work best for you. Change is stressful! And stress on top of additional responsibilities can make transitioning to living a purpose-driven lifestyle difficult. What are the activities that get you in flow? Running, dancing, painting, playing with your kids or going for a walk in nature? Get in the flow.

2. Stick to a sleep schedule to prevent exhaustion but also be prepared for some sleep-deprived days. If you are working full-time while acquiring the knowledge and experiences that you need to transition into a position that more closely aligns with your purpose, strengths, and values, some tired days are inevitable. However, you are unlikely to achieve your goals if you are continuously exhausted. Arrange your schedule to ensure you have at least six to eight hours of sleep. Sleep is integral – don’t skip it!

3. Celebrate the small milestones. This is so important! We forget to celebrate along the way. When you make progress by finding your purpose, consistently do something that enhances your strengths, step out of your comfort zone to make a decision that aligns with your values, or achieve any other milestone, acknowledge it. Research shows that celebrating small wins makes you more motivated and happy. It’s the small things – don’t forget it!

Find a Partner

A powerful way to ensure that you stay on track is to find an accountability partner. Think of it as peer coaching.

The American Society of Training and Development found that people who have an accountability partner are 95% more likely to complete goals on time than individuals who try to achieve their goals on their own.

95%! That’s huge!

Your peer coaching partner could be a work colleague, supportive friend, or family member who will not let you make excuses. Or if you want to grow alongside other people who are pursuing big goals, join a mastermind.

Masterminds are groups of people who support one another in their goals. The benefit of being in one is that not only does the group hold you accountable for what you tell them you want to accomplish, seeing the other members of your group do great things can increase your motivation to do the same.

Final Words

Stick with it. As Ryan Holiday would say, the obstacles are the way! Take every challenge and reframe it as a way of learning, a way of improving, and a stepping stone to living the life you want. And remember, a little stress helps us challenge ourselves as we rise to the occasion!

Now over to you: What is holding you back from pursuing your purpose? I’d love to know!

Get this Free Guide: 6 POWERFUL SECRETS TO FIND YOUR HIGHEST PURPOSE IN LIFE

The world needs more purpose-driven people. But where do you start?

This inspiring guide will give you powerful insights to find and refine your own purpose in life.
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